GENEVA -- Atheists and other religious skeptics suffer persecution or discrimination in many parts of the world and in at least seven countries can be executed if their beliefs become known, according to a report issued Monday.

The study, from the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), showed that "unbelievers" in Islamic countries face the most severe -- sometimes brutal -- treatment at the hands of the state and adherents of the official religion.

But it also points to policies in some European countries and the United States that favor the religious and their organizations and treat atheists and humanists as outsiders.

The report, "Freedom of Thought 2012," said "there are laws that deny atheists' right to exist, curtail their freedom of belief and expression, revoke their right to citizenship, restrict their right to marry."

Other laws "obstruct their access to public education, prohibit them from holding public office, prevent them from working for the state, criminalize their criticism of religion, and execute them for leaving the religion of their parents."

In the United States, for example, where freedom of religion and speech is protected, a social and political climate prevails "in which atheists and the non-religious are made to feel like lesser Americans, or non-Americans," the report said.

In at least seven U.S. states, constitutional provisions are in place that bar atheists from public office and one state, Arkansas, has a law that bars atheists from testifying as witnesses at trials, the report said.

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To be fair to Bush (why?), that was reported by a single journalist who claims he overheard it, though no other journalist did and there is no recorded record of it. Still, I was in the military (and an atheist) which I found somewhat offensive.

What scares them the most is that their god simply won't do anything about us. We lead productive lives, we are inherently happy people, we are continually rewarded instead of being cursed by the invisible and eternally absent entity that they suffer through life trying to please.

By the way, my wife BethKz and I (when we lived in Oklahoma) decided to get married in Colorado, because a provision of the state constitution of Oklahoma has it: A marriage can only be performed by a jurist, a retired jurist, a ship captain aboard his ship, or a Minister of the Gospel. (We couldn't find a ship captain aboard his ship in Oklahoma and didn't have money to challenge the state constitution in court, so we took our money to Colorado instead and had a Discordian wedding in Polish and English. The Discordian vows we took are on one of my wife's Websites.)

Right now there is a "draft Herb Silverman" for the Senate on the retirement of Sen Jim DeMint. Silverman was the candidate that ran in So. Car. as the "candidate without a prayer" (whose slogan I hijacked for my own pitch for office here).

Silverman ran for governor of So. Carolina specifically to challenge the state constitution, which has it that atheists may not hold any office of public trust. He came in third in the election, then challenged it in court, where the court said he had no standing. (They sidestepped the issue: since he didn't win, he had no standing.)

So now the Draft Herb Silverman Movement. It seems unlikely the state governor, Nikki Haley, a Republican darling will actually select him though, and she certainly wouldn't say she didn't select him because he is an atheist; that would give him standing in court.

(She just had her political career destroyed by the entire tax record of So. Car. being hijacked by a foreign hacker, including SSNs, children, spouse names, bank accounts, &c - by the way, if you have filed for taxes since 1997 in that state see The Economist article: [not paywalled]: http://www.economist.com/news/21567391-huge-theft-unencrypted-data-... with the ruined Republican governor’s picture on the top of the Internet article)